Could the helium balloon go up, up and away?

The Party Warehouse in Colonie with a helium-filled balloons for all occasions. The store has not had a problem getting helium -- yet. (Skip Dickstein/Times Union)

NOTE: Make sure you check out our new Right Now page debuting today on A2 of the newspaper. First up: Are we in danger of losing another piece of Americana?

Not to sound a high-pitched goofy-voiced alarm, but we are running out of helium.

No more Snoopy floating down Fifth Avenue on Thanksgiving? How about balloons hovering over chairs around the birthday table or at graduation parties?

More importantly except to 6-year-olds, what about all the medical and high-tech apparatus and manufacturing operations that rely on it?

Could the floating balloon go the way of so many other pieces of lost Americana?

“We are running out of helium,” said Dave Mahoney, president and CEO of the Albany-based Noble Gas Solutions. “The first business that has to go is balloons. That’s going to go away. And the retailers, they know it.

“The last thing I want to do is see a welding operation lay people off … so I can watch a bunch of balloons at a parade.”

Production shortfalls are the blame for the immediate shortages.

“I would not have guessed a year ago we’d be talking about helium,” said Frank Gallo Jr. of Frank Gallo & Son Florist, which has regional stores.

Tony Riggio, New York chief operations officer for Party City, said “supplies have definitely tightened for the past 60 days. We are expecting it to last another 30 to 60 days. “

Prices have spiked by 20 to 50 percent. Some retailers have had trouble getting the gas. Many are taking steps to conserve, ranging from not renting tanks to cutting down on display balloons.

The pressure will ease in the short-term, but that does not erase the fact that the U.S., long a leading exporter, will be an importer by the end of the decade, Mahoney said. Part of the issue stems from the United States’ decision in the 1990s to sell off its helium reserves — stockpiled from the days helium had military applications with dirigibles — and diminishing resources.

While consumers will see the effects directly in balloons, the bigger concern rests in other applications, whether medical devices such as MRIs to leak detection and welding.

Mahoney said his supplies got cut to 80 percent in June. He is not taking on additional customers, and plans to meet with the ones he has this week to apprise them of the ongoing situation.

“There is definitely a shortage,” said Jerry Sykes, owner of The Party Warehouse in Albany. “We need to find another gas that is light than air. But it doesn’t exist.”